


Right into Paradise

by matheMagical



Category: One Piece
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Illustrated, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Injury Recovery, Its uh got major character death!, M/M, Not a happy ending maybe but a hopeful ending, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 00:37:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18000461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matheMagical/pseuds/matheMagical
Summary: Luffy is gone and the empire he has built is crumbling. Zoro tries to deal with it, Law tries not to. Neither of them does it too well.





	1. Chapter 1

The second king of pirates doesn’t die the way he lived. He dies quietly on a cold, calm night aboard the Thousand Sunny, from what you are later told was probably heart failure. He is thirty, almost thirty one.

You had noticed for a while that he took more medications, things to do with his fucked up liver and weird blood, different painkillers and probably other ones that you didn’t understand. But as you noticed it you never though, it didn’t even cross your mind, that you would wake up next to him one day and find him not breathing. His smell had changed, not to corpse smell yet but that weird plasticy smell he always had was gone and replaced with the subtle smell of human skin.

It rattles you, of course. It shakes you to your very core. You mourn him both as his friend, his first mate and part of what it was you had with him and Law. His kind-of-husband. Something like that.

His funeral is held a week later on a quiet island close to Shabondy. When you find out he left a complete last will and instructions for what to do with his body you end up giving Sanji a concussion and Nami a black eye just because they try to calm you down. Chopper apologises as they are bandaging your split knuckles (what did you punch to split them?) with short breath and tears in their big eyes. You force yourself not to zone out as they speak.  
“He made me promise not to tell anyone, Zoro. I wanted to tell you, I really wanted to, I’m so sorry.” They are still doing something to your hands, but their hooves are shaking so much it isn’t hard to break their hold and pull them into a hug.  
“You didn’t do anything wrong”, you say. Your voice is hoarse. “You obeyed orders, and that can’t have been easy. You were very brave.”

 

Law arrives one day early. He is traveling alone on a small fast boat with no sail. With his black coat, black suit and Kikoku on his shoulder he looks like death incarnate, and with his dull skin, shaky hands and bloodshot eyes he looks like death warmed over. He has an armful of fluffy red flowers with him.  
“Are you going to be alright?” you ask him with your hands on his shoulders.  
“No”, he says with a short, flat voice. “Will you?”  
You sigh.  
“With time, yeah.” He takes your hand and squeezes it.  
“I’m glad you have hope.”

On the day of the funeral you wear your regular coat, pants and boots with stains on your sleeves and mud on your shoes. Law wears his coat on his shoulders like a big black cape and a felt hat with sheer fabric draped around the brim to cover his face. He lines up with dozens of friends and allies and crewmates to put his flowers on the pyre next to Luffy’s body. You didn’t think of a gift, you were always terrible at those, so you just stand there next to Law and look at your captain where he lies wrapped in sailcloth and dressed in the same old red shirt he died in. You don’t look as the pyre is lit. You don’t look at Law either and you don’t talk.

  


You half wonder why Law didn’t bring any of his high ranking crewmembers (they have taken to calling themselves the “hearts of heart”) when many of them were good friends to both you and Luffy. Not even his apprentice and unofficially adopted daughter Puffin. But then, it’s Law, of course he came on his own. The veil on his hat doesn’t really hide that he is crying. You feel like the ash will stick in your throat and suffocate you but you close your eyes and breathe through it, as people talk and drink and cry around you.

The party is grand and generous and truly fitting Luffy. There is food and drink and music, and plenty of space for all the uninvited guests, and as the sun is setting and the pyre dying down there are speeches. You half expect Law to have one but maybe he didn’t think he could keep a steady voice. Jinbei speaks about Marineford, all long words and well prepared. Sabo says a few words through gritted teeth with Koala holding his hand until it is too much on fire. Robin speaks solemnly and slowly about what it means to live and die, Nami and Vivi speak together, and all these words just blur together. Nobody expects a speech from you, and you would never have given one anyway. Everyone here knows what he meant to you. You shake lots of hands and get lots of hugs, and you’re not sure if you like it but it’s probably good. As the fire goes out you join your friends in shoveling the ashes right into the waters of Paradise.

You drink to him with all the crew and with Vivi and Sabo and allies, rivals and strangers, and Nami again and a third time for good measure. You drink to him with just yourself for loyalty and love and your shitty broken heart. Over everything, the people and noise and light of bonfires, you feel his spirit floating with a bittersweet smile and a wish that none of you feel sad for his sake.

Law drinks too, to what he doesn’t tell you, until he can’t quite walk straight. Sometimes you know where he is and other times you don’t. When you find him sitting on his own with his weird hat in his hands and an empty bottle next to him you sit down, take his hand and don’t let go.  
“I think it’s time to go to bed”, he says as the sky is starting to get the faintest bit lighter in the east. His voice is steadier and clearer than you expected.  
“Yeah”, you say. You are half asleep already. He leans on you all the way back to the house where you slept last night, and when you get to the room you shared he stops to back you up against the door and wrap himself around you with his face pressing against your neck. His voice is less clear as he asks,  
“You want to fuck?” You are drunk and tired and distant and so is he, and yet it would be nice. Luffy was only ever neutral at best about sex. Law is warm and real and alive and running his hands over your sides. You undo the button of his suit jacket and pull him in for the first kiss since you and Luffy last said goodbye to him some three months ago.

You have him against you on the bed, on top of you and breathing into your mouth, and both of you desperately want this to work but it doesn’t. You love him and want him but you’re too fucked up. In the end he bites your shoulder too hard and you ask if he wants to stop. He freezes for a second before flopping down against you and kissing your throat.  
“Yeah”, he whispers. “Sorry.”  
“Don’t apologize.” You hug him and comb your hands through his short hair. “Hey, I feel gross. You want a shower?”  
“It’s like 5 am”, he says and rolls off of you. He covers his eyes with his arm.  
“I’m going to shower”, you say and sit up. “I think you should join.” You want to fall asleep without knowing he added this to the list of things to anguish over.  
“Rude”, he says. “Sure. Let’s go.”

He lets you wash his back and washes yours in return. There was ash left in your hair (and on your boots and trousers and probably your lungs and soul too) so you have to wash it even though you don’t know where your shampoo is and _do_ know it will still be wet when you wake up.  
“Sorry for biting you”, Law says as he is washing someone else’s soap out of your long hair.  
“It’s ok.”  
“And sorry for– I probably drank too much, fuck, I just–”  
“No one cares if you did, Law. It’s fine.” He doesn’t argue, but you feel as much as you hear how he chokes back a sob. You lean back against him and feel how he is holding his breath. You get it, you don’t want to cry either. 

Neither of you says much more as you dry off and get dressed enough to get back to bed. Franky stumbles past you on your way and traps both of you in a bear hug that you don’t know if Law finds comforting or terrifying. As you get back to your room and lock the door there is light creeping in through the open blinds. Law sits for a moment on the edge of the bed as you lie down, looking straight ahead.  
“There is going to be a war”, he says. Then he sighs, lies down and lets you wrap him in your arms. 

(That ends up being the last thing he says to you in six months, and it turns out he is right.)

When you wake up the next day he is gone and you rush of to search for him half expecting to find his corpse somewhere. Brook tells you when you run into him that the little fast boat with no sail left two hours ago with it’s owner at the helm. You are unsurprised but you don’t feel good. Brook thanks you for showing him your underwear and you don’t laugh but you don’t think he expected you to. On the bedside table in the room where you slept you find something you missed: a sturdy, small metal box with the main part of Law’s vivre card, the piece that attracts the others. It is whole. He is fine.

“So Torao just fucking ditched you?” asks Sanji as the Strawhats (still Strawhats even when the hat in question had been passed on) sit down for breakfast around lunchtime. The air is cold and crisp and Sanji has made too much food. You can’t imagine why he thinks Law leaving early is his problem, you shrug and glare at him and hope he will drop it.

“Did he tell you where he is heading?” asks Nami.  
“No. I think he needs space. He left his vivre card.”  
“Don’t you already– wait, his piece of it?” Sanji leans forward from his usual slouch. “So you can’t find him? He’s such a little shit! What does he want, for you to kill his assassins for him? What sort of shitty move is this?”  
“I am perfectly happy to kill his assassins for him.” He doesn’t take you up on the staring contest.  
“Well, whatever, he owes you for this. It’s bullshit and it’s not fair.” Franky and Nami nod along. Brook is quietly spinning a teacup around on it’s saucer.  
“He said yesterday he thinks there will be a war”, you say. “You know people want his head! I don’t blame him for wanting to lay low.”  
“Oh yeah, because cutting you off when you need him is a stellar tactic. You have to be his strongest ally!”  
“Is this really what you want to be talking about right now, Eyebrows?” This time he does meet your stare. Tense silence drags out and your knuckles go white around Wado’s hilt, until a chair scrapes out and Chopper gets up to come over and climb into your lap.

You wrap an arm around them, and pick up your cup of tea. Jinbei sighs and Sanji huffs.  
“Well, Zoro”, says Robin and flowers a hand to squeeze your shoulder. “If you need anything we will be here.”  
“Thanks”, you say. “I uh, will too.” 

You spend the day cleaning up after the party. Someone tells you to move things and you do without questioning what they are or if you are putting them in the right place, but nobody complains. As the sun sets the only trace left is the patch of burnt ground and when it rises again you and the remaining Strawhats leave on the Thousand Sunny. You don’t have any plans other than taking it easy for a while in Paradise, and it is the first time in many years so many of you are gathered on the ship. The galley is full of your friends and at the same time very empty, and it makes the air feel a little like cold molasses in your lungs. At least there isn’t a room on the Sunny that belonged specifically to Luffy, other than the figurehead maybe. That was already off limits anyway. It is a good place to contain his ghost.

For a month not much happens, then Jinbei leaves for Fishman Island after an urgent call. A week later Nami reads out loud from the newspaper about how the island has been attacked first by one of the newer Yonko and then by the Marines in the span of two days. Luffy’s empire was always a vague thing, held together by personal charisma alone. Without him you can only watch it crumble and the world scrabble to defend what is no longer under his protection.

On days when you get yourself to read you look for Law’s name in the headlines. He has driven rival crews and the Marines and government up the wall for years and years, with his Yonko title, foul manners and goal of digging up as much dirt as he can get his hands on. Many people speculated that the only reason for his success was that he was close to Luffy, as allies or friends or whatever people thought of them as, and you are sure people will be testing those theories now. The air seems to be vibrating around him.

The first threat to the Heart Pirates who gets taken seriously makes the cover page some six weeks after Luffy’s death when he turns up at New Marineford on his half-sunk flagship and hands himself over. In the pictures he is being dragged away in handcuffs and shouting something with wild eyes. You suspect his chest is just a useless cavern.  
“Law up to no good, huh?” says Nami as she reads over your shoulder. “Does it say if they’ve seen him anywhere?”  
“No”, you answer. “Not a trace of him.”  
“Course not”, she sighs.  
“Yeah.”  
“Vivi is going to be heading back to Alabasta soon”, she says. “I’ll go with her, and then stop by East blue and check how things are there.”  
“Ok.”  
“Want to come along?”  
“I… don’t think so. Sorry.” She pats your shoulder.  
“You have until tonight to change your mind, if you want.” You nod. 

Usopp leaves with them, and you do not. Not long after Gin and the Demon pirates stop by to say there has been unrest in Shabondy and Sanji leaves with them to go make sure his restaurant will be safe. Like that, the crew splits up again: most of them have somewhere important to protect. You don’t. You set out with some half-baked idea of finding Perona or checking in with Johnny and Yosaku, but you simply end up drifting aimlessly for some time before you end up with Franky in Water Eight, where he offers you to stay.

Lots of things happen around you while you are there that you do not keep track of. They lend you a room in one of the densely packed tall buildings in the center of the floating city. The view is beautiful. Most days you sleep, train and eat, some days you do more and some days you don’t manage all three. There are stretches of time when you do little more than getting drunk and sleeping. Franky ropes you into some of the many things happening, sometimes that means fighting which you do not mind even if you aren’t sure who you are fighting. You see Iceberg three times, all of them very brief but you still notice he hasn’t changed a hair in the last decade, and you get a letter one day from Yosaku. He writes that Johnny has been killed in a battle against some Arlong-type petty tyrant and for all of a second you regret not looking properly for them. You heart doesn’t have more space for grief.

Two months into this you are used to zoning out unless Franky is there to talk about something and you have to try and listen. This particular morning you only nod along because what he’s saying doesn’t sound like questions, and then he sighs and runs a hand through his wild synthetic hair.  
“Hey Bro”, he says, “is there anything I can do for you? You don’t seem so hot.”  
“I don’t know what that would be”, you say and narrow your eyes at him. He looks as unkempt and tired as you, just with better reason. He runs around all day building shit and protecting the city. He has reason to be tired.  
“I don’t know either”, he says and pushes his shades into his hair to rub at his eyes. “It just hurts to see you like this.” 

You sit down and look straight ahead. If looking at you hurts he can leave. He does.

The next day you decide you are going to leave. You pack your things and go looking for Franky which takes most of the day. The directions you are given lead you after a lot of guessing to a workshop where the cyborg is working with tiny hand files on a big complicated metal part. He smiles big at you and stands up, and then his smile drops.  
“You going anywhere, Zoro-bro?” he asks and gestures at your bag.  
“Yeah.”  
“Okay. Off the island?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Can I ask where you are heading?”  
You nod reluctantly. “I’m going to look for Law.” You could have thought of an excuse, but honestly you would have just arrived at this anyway. It wouldn’t have been easier to say if you had been dreading it ahead of time.  
“Oh”, says Franky, dusts off his hands and walks up to you. “Any idea where he might be?”  
“No.”  
“Okay. Hey, Zoro, does this have anything to do with what I said yesterday? Because I promise I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. You can stay as long as you want.”  
“No, it’s not that. I just realized I have places to be, you know.”  
“If you say so”, he says. He is still making a worried face. “Oh, dude, you totally need a boat right?”  
“I guess. I was just going to take the sea train.”  
“No dude, you need a boat sooner or later! Let’s go find you a boat.” He is grinning while he puts some of the tools away and turns off the bench lamp. “Let’s go!”

He talks about boats a lot. In the end he decides the perfect boat for you is a large-ish steam wind hybrid with a big canon thing on it. It is green, he tells you twice despite you answering that you can see it. You ask if he doesn’t have a regular little sailboat. He does, or at least there is one: it is of Icebergs design and as such doesn’t have an engine you don’t understand or weapons you don’t need. You ask who to pay for it, and he waves you off.  
“Iceberg wants you to have a good boat too, Bro. He won’t mind.”  
“Has he said that?”  
“Well, it’s marked as available for sale or use, and he probably owes me for something or other. Just take it. Do you have a log pose?”  
“I can just follow the sea train tracks.”  
“You super still need a log pose! And at least one eternal pose too, that’s good to have on hand.”  
“I’ll get one then.”  
“Good good. Do you have food?”

He keeps coming up with things you need, and night has already fallen when he finally stops and just says he will get someone to pack the boat and have it ready for you in the morning. People come to talk to him twice and he still insists on making them wait so he can sort out these damn boat logistics. Then he says you should eat dinner with him, and it must have shown how you really do not want that because he stops talking.  
“Franky, I’m really fucking tired. Can we not talk right now?”  
“Ok. Do you want to eat with me if we don’t talk?”  
“I don’t want that.”  
“Do you want me to have someone bring you some dinner?” You don’t want that either but you won’t eat anything on your own. You open your mouth and close it again.  
“Let’s get you back to your room first anyway”, says Franky. You are embarrassed but you can’t bring yourself to say you will get back on your own. He keeps a hand on your shoulder as you walk. You have to admit his company makes things efficient, you are back in no time. Franky tells you to sit down and you do while he starts looking through the kitchenette for ingredients for some simple dinner. He hums to himself as he works but doesn’t talk, and you don’t get up to help him.  
“Is it ok if I stay?” he asks as he’s putting down a plate of fried fish and rice in front of you.  
“Yeah. Sorry. Things got a bit much, I was an asshole.”  
“Don’t mention it Bro!”

He gets his own plate of food and sits down in front of you. For a while he just sits there and looks awkward, then he shoves a few bites of food in his mouth.  
“Hey…”, he chews and swallows, “I’m sorry for bringing this up again but are you sure you want to leave tomorrow already?” You nod. “Alright. You should see if you can find Robin, she might know something.”  
“I don’t know where she is.”  
“Do you want to borrow her vivre card?”  
“No, you need that.”  
“Ok. I think she’s near Shabondy anyway.” 

Now well equipped you leave the next afternoon, on the small sailing boat you picked out. It feels good. You have an eternal pose for Shabondy so you are free to just drift however you like. The ocean stretches wide and empty around you and the sky above stretches just as far. The boat has a device to collect rainwater and when you run out of food you can catch fish easily enough. For a while you feel like it does you good. But the ghost of your captain feels so close sometimes that you find yourself talking to him. The time when all there was to the strawhat pirates was two stupid kids in a dinghy feels so clear in your memory it becomes more real than the present. Despite getting all the space you could want and despite not drinking you wake up one night and feel your chest constricting at the fact that you have no idea how long you have been drifting for. It is a long night with the darkness and distance and sobriety pressing in on you.

  


The next morning you dig up that eternal pose and set sail to Shabondy. You start keeping track of the days and when you come across a lone marine battleship you destroy their rigging with a carefully aimed slash, gouge out part of the hull and demand they give you today’s News Coo and any cash they have. When they oblige you sink their ship anyway. The newspaper tells you that queen Vivi of Alabasta is keeping her throne, that the Marines just took back control over Shabondy Archipelago and that one and a half month has passed since you set sail.

When you arrive at Shabondy you can tell parts of the settlement have been destroyed recently. On the grove where you moor your little boat a few houses are just piles of rubble, and the huge tree at the center has a deep gash in it’s bark. People give you wary glances as you pay the owner of the pier and make your way to an undamaged enough inn, but nobody gives you any trouble. Not even the Marines. You are fairly certain this is not because the alone-at-sea-for-a-month beard has made you unrecognizable, sadly you are too famous for that, so either they are planning something or they just don’t want to cause a stir. Even when you spend two hours sitting outside of Sanji’s closed and barred up restaurant All Blue the only person who approaches you is a scruffy looking kid who wants to fight you. You refuse, and they settle for taking a few pointers about their stance.

The next day somebody does spot you. The moment you leave the inn you feel an uncomfortable tingling at the back of your neck, a carefully toned down buzz of intention. Your hand tightens around Wado. You can’t pinpoint the direction of the observer so you keep walking and abandon wherever it was you were headed to slowly navigate somewhere emptier, where the spy won’t be able to hide in a crowd. You could cut everyone close enough down, sure, but you do want to know who is following you and even for you that sounds a bit too gruesome.

The usual feeling of excitement has a queasy tone to it today, maybe for a reason or maybe just because things are always shitty these days and the world refuses you even this one moment of distraction… and then that thought fucking does distract you and the buzz has faded to nothing. There is lots of destroyed buildings around you and nobody will mind if you cut the rubble into smaller pieces so even if it is a stupid goddamn move when you know you are being followed you lower your guard and let your frustration out. Even then nobody attacks you. You kick over a last piece of brick wall and sigh, grimace and close your eyes. The spy might still return. You open your eyes, take a deep breath and continue walking without paying much attention to where.

When you feel that buzz returning you keep your mind and posture carefully neutral. No giving away your alertness, just walking, wherever just no weird turns. Slowly you make your way to a residential area with empty narrow streets between three story buildings, and out of the faint rumble of people a faint presence hesitantly reveals itself. With these narrow streets the spy will have to get closer in order to keep track of you or maybe get onto the roofs but there you will find them even easier. The excitement is better and less queasy now but something is still off, like recognizing a face out of the corner of your eye. A position, intention, almost close enough to you. Just a few more steps and whoever it is will be within your range. You feel the next few moves fan out before you and then you unsheathe your sword and step into fate.

The second you trike you feel a sharp flash of recognition and a blink of an eye after that you are eye to eye with Shachi of the Hearts of Heart, your fist in his shirt and your sword to his neck.  
“What the fuck”, you wheeze. “What the _fuck_ are you doing here? Does he— does Law think he can send his dogs to spy on me?” He starts answering but you can’t hear him. You use your grip on his shirt to slam him into the nearest wall and then pin him to the ground with a knee across his chest and your blade still at his throat.  
“Did Law send you?” you ask. “Does he know you’re here?”  
“He— well, yeah I mean he has my card. And yours kinda. He, eh, we keep an eye on you for him and when nobody saw you for two weeks I went to investigate myself so, I mean—”  
“You ‘keep an eye on me’?”  
“Yeah, like, he wanted someone to make sure you were ok and he knew he wouldn’t be able to do that himself so I’ve been responsible for that.” 

The difficult bastard knew he couldn’t look out for you himself, huh. You are quiet for a second and Shachi starts rambling again until you snarl at him.  
“So what’s your judgement then? As responsible?”  
“What?” he asks. He is sweating.  
“Do I seem ok?”  
“Hahaa, well, I mean not in the best shape maybe, understandably, but for someone in that kind of situation I guess you look—”  
“Shachi.”  
He goes quiet.  
“Do you know where he is?” He whines at that.  
“I couldn’t tell you that, you know that would be treason.”  
“Do you know where the fuck he is or not?” He goes to nod but your blade nicks his throat and he changes his mind.  
“I do.”  
“Good.” You press Wado just a hair deeper in the cut he gave himself and draw a thin line of blood. “You are going to take me to him, or I will leave him a message _carved into your bones_.”  
He smiles wide at you and the way he swallows smears the blood over his neck.  
“Ok. Ok ok ok, that, haha, that seems reasonable! Ok. Fine. Cool.”  
“You’re taking me right to where he is, no fucking funny business, got it?”  
“Yeah yeah! I’ll take you to him, as long as the blame isn’t uh, right on me, it’s a—”  
“Good.” 

You stand up but keep your sword pointing his way a few seconds before you wipe it down on your sleeve and sheathe it. For a few breaths everything is quiet. Then Shachi slowly raises his hands.  
“Can I get up?” he asks. You nod. He exhales and gets to his feet, leans on his knees for a second. You close your eyes to try and gather yourself a bit.  
“Hey, you know, Zoro. I don’t want to betray my captain’s trust even when he trusts me to do something pretty stupid. I really don't want to. But this, other than the death threat part. Other than that I am fine with it.” You don’t answer him. “About that… did you really mean it?” he asks quietly, rubbing at his neck.  
“Not the bone carving thing. But killing you… I think I still fucking mean that.” You sigh. “Sorry Shachi.”  
“You don’t have to kill me you know, I want to help. You got any unfinished business here, or do you want to leave right away?”  
“I have nothing to do.”  
“Ok, then how about we leave tomorrow morning?”  
“Fine. But so you know I’m not letting you out of my sight until then.”  
“Ha, suit yourself.”  
“Yeah. Hey, where is he even at anyway?”

Shachi looks around then tugs you closer and whispers so close to your ear it tickles:  
“He’s recovering from an injury on Zou.”


	2. Chapter 2

Shachi’s boat is an unmarked junk-rigged little thing that could pass as a fishing boat if not for the fact that it is sailing the open seas of the Grand Line, it is slower than your Galley-La sailboat but you follow after him as he navigates with some mysterious device. Considering the waters you travel the journey is quick and smooth, across the Red Line in a few days and a week through New World. When your boats are within speaking distance Shachi runs his mouth much unlike the spy he is but whenever you actually listen it sounds like he just wants to break up the noise of waves and wind with the sound of his voice. You nod along.

Then he says one evening that Zou is just a day’s travel away. You nod, shove the rest of your dinner into your mouth and then go sort through your pack for your toiletries. Suddenly you feel very done with the month-at-sea beard, it is time to look like yourself again. Shachi leans on the railing of his boat and looks curiously at you.  
“Did you hear what I said or did you just nod anyway?” he asks.  
“I heard you.”  
“Ok, just wanted to check. What are you doing?”  
“Shaving.” He laughs.  
“You know Law won’t notice how you look, right?” You look away and will yourself not to throw your razor overboard. It’s a nice razor, straight blade decorated with green enamel, although Sanji gave it to you so you find it’s niceness a little infuriating. You still don’t want to lose it though.  
“The fuck do you know about that?” you growl. You don’t know why you are so angry.  
“Ah, sorry”, says Shachi. “I just meant, he only cares about how he looks himself. Uh, sorry.”   
“Whatever.” You keep shaving and comb out your messy long hair to put it up in a more proper knot. Your reflection in the tiny hand mirror doesn’t look half bad, the cheeks are a little too angular maybe but the unruly long hair is nice. The eye that looks back at you is still yours.

Later that night when the boats are moored together and Shachi is asleep you dig out Law’s vivre card box from the bottom of your bag. You haven’t opened it more than the one time. For a while you just sit awake in the moonlight and turn it over in your hands without daring to open it. It is probably a little damaged since Shachi mentioned an injury. How bad? Why didn’t you open the box before? He must have left it with you so you could know he was alive but holy shit, you could never stand to look on in real time as it told you he was dying but didn’t let you find him. With gritted teeth you finally crack the thing open: it is full of powdery ash but underneath it something like two thirds of the card remains. You breathe out. What was it you expected to feel about this anyway? You shut the box, shove it back into your bag and try again to sleep without much success.

At Zou you are greeted with rigorous security. You stand stiffly and wait in a bare little room next to Shachi as he exchanges passcodes and documentation and hurried words with an armed crewmate. You have your bag slung over your shoulder and the vivre card box in one sweaty hand. The air is humid and warm as it always remains up on Zunisha’s back, even over colder waters, and the room smells like spilled coffee.

You feel Law approaching before you hear his footsteps. He isn’t making his usual sound of boot heels and even if he did you think you’d feel the way he’s looking for you before you heard it. The moment before he opens the door stretches out as if he was going to burst through the door armed and backed by an army, and you don’t know if there is a better thing to feel so you let that battle readiness wash over you.

 

 

He opens the door all sharp but doesn’t slam it, his posture is stiff and he is making himself tall. You toss him the vivre card box before you have time to pick up that his right arm is resting in a sling across his chest. He catches it with his devil fruit without flinching.  
“You forgot something”, you say.  
“Thank you”, he responds. His voice is level. He grabs the box out of the air with his good hand but holds it in the bad one, so presumably what messed his arm up didn’t reach his hand.  
“You’re welcome”, you say. He sighs and takes a few more steps into the room, looks you up and down with weary eyes. Behind him Bepo pokes his head around the doorframe.  
“I assume you have come to talk to me” he says. You nod.  
“All right. Bepo, cover for me. Shachi, debriefing later.”  
“Yes Cap”, says Shachi. He is squirming.  
“Aye aye!” says Bepo. “And, uhm, hello Roronoa. Welcome to Zou?”  
Law gestures at the door. “Zoro.”

You walk through the temporary Heart pirate base in silence. There isn’t much people around but the few you meet give you wary glances. Law gives you a few looks too, unreadable ones out of the corner of his eye. He is dressed in simple and light clothes, black wide pants, an open coat and canvas sandal-slipper-things. All of it unlike him. Under the coat you can see bandages and fresh scars over his chest but no bruises or actual wounds. His hair is a little longer than he has kept it the last few years, makes it look thinner. You think normally, he would have taken your hand.

As soon as he closes the door behind you he seems to deflate. You are in some sort of small office, there is a cluttered desk and a simple wooden chair where he sits down with a sigh that is almost a groan. He shuts his eyes for a moment before looking up at you.  
“You're hurt”, you say. He nods.  
“Got a goddamn sword run through my shoulder because I was an idiot and then I was an even bigger idiot and let and get it infected. Now it refuses to heal. And fucking mystery pain as usual.” Luffy’s word for it: pain that comes from complicated things. Law suffered from that sometimes, exhaustion that turned to pain long after it should be gone. He waves his hand and sighs. “Sorry for looking like shit”, he says. “I wasn’t expecting you.”  
“You know I don’t care.” He smiles at that.  
“Shachi led you here, huh?”  
“I threatened his life, don’t take it out on him.”  
“You threatened his life?”  
“I’m sure he will tell you all about it.”  
There is a pause. Law frowns.  
“Please do not threaten to kill my friends, Zoro.” You scowl.  
“So what should I do when you fuck off for half a damn year then?”  
“I… have disappeared before”, he says. He has this searching look on his face, trying to solve you like a puzzle.  
“Not like this you haven’t.”

“Sorry”, he says after a while and stands up. You close your eye, feel his fingers run lightly down your arm.  
“Can I hug you?” he asks and you nod. His coat is soft, his skin is warm and the sling and bandages are scratchy as you lean into him. You wrap your arms lightly around him and wait for that togetherness to settle, the feeling of reuniting with him after you and your captain had been away. You wait and wait as he runs his left hand over your shoulders and you just feel the aching loneliness shifting into the same aching loneliness, just with company. The togetherness isn’t coming. You can’t breathe.

Law must have noticed because he pulls back a little and says your name. You keep your eyes closed and grab his arms so he can’t run off. Breathe. You manage an inhale and an exhale that shakes a little and then the next breath turns into a choked off sob and before you can get any more of a grip on yourself you are crying harder than you have in a decade. Breathe, come on. Between the sobbing at least. You want to sit down but you don’t want Law to leave so you keep your grip on his arms and pull him to the floor with you. He is talking but you don’t care about what he is saying.

You do not tell him that you will never be complete again or that he alone is not enough, even though that feels true.  
“I’ve been so fucking lonely”, you say. You let go of his arms, open your eye a little. He is looking at you with big eyes. You lean on his shoulder, so he can’t see your face and also because touching him makes you feel a little less like death.  
“You just disappeared without a word.”  
“I… did, yeah.”  
“And I defended you to my crew! They were more upset than I when they realized you were gone. I told them I knew you better and you had your reasons.”  
“I’m sorry.” His voice is monotone. “I didn’t think it through. I though, before when something fucked up would happen it was always you who was ok.”  
“Yeah? I was always fine because I always had  _ him _ .” You only just manage to say it, and it comes out a wheeze.

Law leans away from you.  
“Oh, yeah”, he mumbles.  
“Yeah.”  
“I fucked up.”  
“ _ Yeah _ .”  
“Didn’t you stay with the other Strawhats?”  
“They had places to be.” Law is quiet. You rest your arms on your knees and press your face into the crook of your elbow.  
“I don’t want to put you in a place where you have to forgive me”, says Law after a while. He clears his throat a little. “But uh, you are welcome to stay here for as long as you like. If you want a ride somewhere I can arrange that too.”  
“I want to stay for a while.” Then it’s quiet again.

“You know”, Law begins in a strained voice, “I’m always fighting myself not to think I’ve screwed things up unforgivably and you will hate me forever. But, I think, that I’m not good at knowing when I actually do something really bad.”  
“I guess”, you say and hope he will be satisfied with that as a comment.  
“Is this, I mean… how bad did I screw up?”  
You lean back and press your hands over your eyes.  
“Fuck, Law, I don’t know! This is all too much, I don’t know how I feel about this shit.” Tears are running down your face again. You are so sick of it. “I don’t want to talk about it right now, ok? I don’t know.” He puts a light hand on your shoulder, and you lower your hands to look at his face. His eyes are wide and tired and pink.   
“Can I hug you?” he asks again. You nod and wipe your face vainly on your sleeve. When you lean into him he hooks his chin over your shoulder and presses his head to yours like he wants to wrap himself all around you. He smells like antiseptic but not like blood and if you’re hurting him by hugging him so tights he doesn’t say anything. He keeps holding you as you sit and breathe and finally calm down with a chest full of empty.

“Do you want something to eat?” he asks as you’re starting to zone out.  
“Yeah.” You want to lie down in a remote, deep hole and sleep for a year, but beyond that food would be good too. Law almost manages not to wince as he sits back. You do not help him up as you stand.  
“I’ll go sort that out”, he says. “Um, do you… this isn’t the most comfortable room. I’m sure there is an empty bedroom somewhere but if you don’t want to wait in here, hm, my room is just three doors over.”   
“It’s fine.” You wonder if he is awkward about it because he is unsure if you still like him or because the room is messy. It is probably messy either way.

When Law steps out of the office he looks down the corridor and over his shoulder, like he doesn’t want someone to see you. Fuck if you want someone to see you either, with your face still covered in snot and shit, but that look makes you feel like such an embarrassment. You can’t think about that now. The situation is so full of shame and awkwardness and it will choke you if you let it, so Law is just going to have to be ashamed enough for both of you.

He holds the third door down open for you and it is indeed a mess even if it is clear he wasn’t going to stay here for long. It is not filled with his collections and old documents or decorated to his peculiar tastes but the bed is covered in a heap of blankets and covered in strands of Bepos white fur.  
“Sorry for the mess” he says, kicks some clothes under the bed and sweeps some old bandages off a side table into the tash. You just breathe a tired, snotty sounding laugh at him as he opens a door and walks into the en-suite bathroom behind it.  
“You can take a shower if you want to”, he says. “You’re not stinky or anything but you can if you want, the towels on top of the cabinet should be clean and there’s plenty of hot water.” You would be unsurprised if you are actually stinky but you appreciate the sentiment. He is rummaging around with something, as if you didn’t know after all these years that he keeps all his private spaces in a state of half deliberate chaos. It’s more homely in here than the little office anyway.  
“Sorry”, he says again as he emerges from the bathroom. Then he looks at the vivre card box as if he forgot he still carried it and is trying to remember where it came from.  
“Food. Right.” He sighs and tosses the box on the bed where it bounces onto the floor. “I’ll be right back.”

He leaves and you sit down in the armchair after moving a stack of papers from it. It feels like the kind of well worn armchair you could sit in forever and forget about the universe. Outside of the west facing window the sun is setting and you lean back and watch the shadows slowly climbing up the wall. Just as you’re starting to feel restless enough that showering seems like a better idea than staring at the wall Law returns, accompanied by a Heart pirate who you don’t recognize and who is carrying two bowls of food. You eat sitting on the bed in silence that may be awkward or tense but you are too busy soaking up the feeling of him sitting next to you to care.   
“I have to go talk to Shachi”, he says after staring at his half eaten food for a while. “And see if Bepo needs anything before I head to bed. Sorry.” You shrug.  
“Whatever. Just don’t be too hard on Shachi, ok?”  
“I won’t.” He stands up. “I’ll be back, ok? You just make yourself comfortable.” He hesitates for a second before turning away and leaving. You sit and look at the door for a while before you get up and go take a shower. The bathroom has dark green tiles on the floors and wall and smells like laundry, damp air and citrusy soap. When you are done you put your pants back on with the intention of meditating for a while but end up asleep on top of the covers instead.

When you wake up the room is dark except for a little sliver of moonlight. Law is back, asleep in the armchair with his legs stretched out in front of him, his neck bent awkwardly and his coat around his shoulders. He must have sneaked in, turned out the lights and gone to sleep in the goddamn chair all without waking you up.  
“Oi”, you say and just about decide not to throw something at him. “Trafalgar, you piece of shit.” He twitches awake but doesn’t lift his head. “I know you are and expert of moping but this is just silly. Take your shoes off and get in your damn bed.” He winces and makes a pathetic little groan but he does lean down to take his shoes off.

He undresses and gingerly removes his arm from the sling. In the dark room the white bandages around his shoulder stand out against his dark skin. You stand up to take your pants off and let him take the spot closest to the wall, then you crawl under the blanket pile and pull him into your arms. His skin is a little cold but his breath is warm in your hair, he sighs against your temple and then inhales as if to say something.  
“Dont”, you say just as he’s starting to tell you “sorry” yet again.  
“What?”  
“Look… do you even know what you’re sorry for?” He lies quiet and motionless. “You’re picking up Bepo’s bad habits.” He doesn’t respond to that either, right until you are about to fall asleep again.   
“I know I have some stuff to apologize”, he says. “That I know. I should have known this wasn’t the way to go about it, too.”   
“Yeah”, you murmur against his neck. He is pressing his cheek to your forehead, his whole self is tense and rubbing your hand over his back only helps the tiniest bit.  
“Goodnight, Zoro.” His voice is so small.  
“Goodnight”, you answer and hug him a little tighter.

You fall asleep quickly but wake up again while it is still dark. Law is lying half on top of you and the weight of him is comforting. The moon is gone or maybe there is a blanket over your head because the room is pitch black. As you lie there and soak in the closeness and breathe his scent in you start noticing that antiseptic smell again, and then the putrid stink of bad wound under it. Up close it is a little cloying. Actually it seems to be getting stronger until it is so intense that even breathing through your mouth makes you nauseous. You reach to push him away or at least get him to move the stink from your face but the skin of his shoulder is all weird when you grab it. Clammy and cold and weirdly soft. Rotting. You can’t move a muscle and lie paralyzed under him as the stink of corpse seeps into your every pore and the room fills with harsh light to show you his dead milky eyes and the maggots and the holes and –  


When you finally get your body to move you shove him off of you, scramble out of the bed and trip on the clothes left on the floor. Heaving deep breaths into your lungs you stand back up and turn around, and from the bed Law stares back at you in the gentle moonlight.  
“Zoro?” he whispers and sits up, rubbing at his shoulder. You breathe out and close your eye for a moment to focus on how the air smells like dust and Law and not like death.  
“Bad dream?” he asks.  
“Yeah.” You open your eye and see you managed to pull half the blanket pile with you onto the floor. Law still has a blanket wrapped around him though. He puts his bare feet down on the floor and starts picking up the escaped pileand you stand and watch him, shivering a little in just your underwear.  
“Did I hurt you?” you ask.  
“Not significantly.” Yeah right. Whatever. You sit down heavily next to him and rub your hands over your face.  
“Do you want to tell me about the dream?” he asks with his head leaning on your shoulder.  
“Dreamt the bed was full of your corpse and I couldn’t move.”  
“Ouch.” His lips move against your skin as he speaks. “That’s a damn good reason for shoving me off you.”

You breathe a short little laugh and pull him with you down on the bed and under the blankets. His skin is warm and alive and you can’t keep from running your hands all over it. He smells like that citrusy soap and antiseptic and also a bit like sweat and his shoulders are covered in little scabs where he has picked at his skin, but at least he isn’t too skinny. As you run your hands down his back he sighs against your neck. He is much less tense, like he hasn’t remembered he was too sorry to be anything else. His sigh turns into kisses and gentle nips of his teeth. You run your hand down his side and hip, lean into him with your whole body and feel him pressing back. Your hand barely reaches down to his thigh so you move it back up to his ass, and he tilts his head up to kiss you properly.

God you missed this. This is what you were looking for that night six months ago, but this time you are both put together enough for it to work. Those months may not have been kind to either of you but at least this time you are sober. Law breaks the kiss to tug you on top of him, frees up his good hand to grab your hair. You sigh against his mouth with your elbows bracketing his head.  
“Is this OK?” he whispers and presses one thigh lightly between yours.  
“Yeah.” You nuzzle his cheek and he tightens his grip on your hair.  
“I missed you too, love”, he says. “So much I couldn’t stand thinking about it.”  
“You wouldn’t have needed to.” You feel the moment balanced on the tip of a blade over a drop into things you don’t want to talk about. Why did you even respond, fuck.  
“Let’s leave what I would have needed doing for later.” He untangles his hand from your hair to stroke the nape of your neck. “Right now I need  _ you _ .”  
“You’re so fucking cheesy”, you say with a laugh.  
“Hell yeah I am!” He sounds very pleased with himself and snickers as he moves his hand down to the small of your back. You can’t help smiling into the kiss, and even though you know you shouldn’t quit being mad at him you give yourself permission to take a break and be in love with him wholeheartedly.

Later you lie shoulder to shoulder catching your breaths with most of the blanket pile on the floor again and sweat cooling on your skin, and he takes your hand.  
“We didn’t talk much last time”, he says.  
“No.”  
“I heard Luffy died in his sleep.”  
“Yeah.”  
“Were you there?”  
“Of course I was. I had no idea, it hadn’t even crossed my mind, it was just a normal fucking day but then that night he just…”  
“God that’s some bullshit.”  
“Yeah”, you say. He squeezes your hand. “Law… did you know?”  
“That he was sick?”  
“Yeah.”  
“I mean I knew something wasn’t perfect but I didn’t look into it. I try to keep my nose out of you guys’ personal business, you know?”  
“Except when you has Shachi spy on me.”  
“Oh, yeah, fucking touché.”  
“You’ve been making a business of being nosy for too long.”  
“Yeah.” He runs a hand over his face. “But no, I didn’t know. I trusted Chopper and Luffy to come to me if there was anything I could have done and logically I know there mustn’t have been. Logically.”  
“Chopper knew about it for god knows how long without getting to tell anyone. It’s, that was fucking unfair. Luffy shouldn’t have made them do that.” He didn’t have to, but he did. He didn’t trust you with the knowledge.  
“Yeah. I can’t say I don’t get it, but it’s pretty damn cruel anyway.”

Cruel. Yeah. It feels cruel. Like a big sharp weight on your chest and cold thick slime in your lungs, but talking about it like this makes it feel like something you can hold on to, something you can handle. Fuck do you wish you could have talked about it earlier.  
“Hey Zoro, you want dibs on the bathroom?” You shrug, and he sits up. “Ok”, he says, kisses you on the cheek and starts climbing first over you and then over the scattered blankets. You close your eye and try not to fall asleep before getting a bit cleaned up.

In the morning when you watch him get dressed his movements are stiff and you see stains of reddish brown and dull yellow on his bandages. The next few days you spend just as idle and restless as you were on Water Eight, you train-eat-sleep, exchange a few words with Bepo now and then and watch as Law gets worse. He spends the time either doing his nosy, scheming, captainly paperwork or hunched over diagrams, medical texts and petri dishes. At first you only see the feverish shiver he has to him when he doesn’t think you’re paying attention but it soon gets obvious not just to you. On the third day he even admits it himself. He is all curt and you can only just about piece together what his very specific words mean: he needs to have the bad cut from his wound, and he knows he should put maggots in it but emphatically doesn’t want to.  
“Uh, good luck?” you tell him. He nods.  
“I might be unavailable for most of today.”  
“That’s reasonable right? I mean, chunks of flesh and all that.” He grimaces.  
“Chunks of flesh and all that, yeah. Fuck.”  
“Hey Law. Don’t… don’t catch gangrene, ok?” He smiles and leans his head against yours.   
“Not making any promises.”  
“Just don’t forget you’re supposed to get better. Please.”  
“I’ll do my best.”

By ‘unavailable’ you thought he meant unconscious rather than busy, but when you have dinner with a few Hearts he is there, probably not fine but at least able to pretend. With his yellowish eyes you can see how his pupils are just a bit too dilated. He doesn’t mention any maggots. Really he doesn’t talk at all, just sits in his tense silence like a castle and picks at his food until he says he’s going to bed.  
“Are you going to be ok, Captain?” Bepo asks with his paw almost covering his mouth.  
“Ridiculous”, snaps Law and shoves his plate away from him. “Shut up.”  
“Yeah, of course. Sorry.” Bepo looks away and curls his large body in over his plate. Law stands up to leave and you scarf the last of your food down to follow him back to his room.

You feel him glaring just outside your field of view and you glare back. It takes him a while to get his shirt off even though it was just held closed by a sash. You kick off your boots, take his spot on the bed closest to the wall and turn your back to the room. When you feel the mattress dip under his weight you expect him to turn away too, but you feel his shoulder and then his breath as he rests his forehead against your spine. You draw a deep breath and open your eye to stare at the wall.  
“You are so busy pretending you’re not miserable that everybody around you has become just another thing to fool.” His keeps his forehead to your back but you feel him holding his breath. Your chest hurts and you don’t know why, but a lot of you hurts from time to time so it is not unexpected. “Bepo was not being ridiculous. You know who it was that was being fucking ridiculous.”  
“Yeah”, he whispers. “I know.”  
“Then you better start acting like it.”

The silence between you grows long. You are about to get back up and leave him to his miserable self when he finally says something.  
“I feel like absolute shit, Zoro.” His voice is raspy and quiet. You sigh.  
“I know.”  
“And you do, too.”   
“I do, yeah.”  
“I wish we didn’t.” You almost laugh at that.  
“Yeah, damn, this sucks.”  He touches a hand to your back. You wish he would hug you but lying on his side probably hurts too much right now. It’s nice anyway, his dry and calloused hand tracing along one of the scars running over your ribs.  
“Shachi said you spent more than a month alone on a tiny boat.”  
“Yeah.”  
“Any mystery pain of your own?”  
“Yeah”, you admit. “Probably not because of that though. I have just been off, way too much sitting still. Everything feels out of sorts.”  
“Makes sense.” He runs his hand over another bit of scar tissue, one that’s too shallow to really hurt. “I’ll mix you up some of Chopper’s Magic Herb Goop.” The way he says it makes you smile.  
“Thanks”, you say and roll over to bury your nose in his hair.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hohoho, three years on the day since i started this! My first multichap fic finally finished. Enjoy!

That night you expect bad dreams, with the strong smell of disinfectant over blood and the dream from the first night still fresh in your memory. Instead you dream of a wide warm sea that lies all flat and calm and turquoise around you even though the wind is tearing the sail of your little boat to shreds. The boat capsizes and you fall into the sea like falling through air, warm water whistling past your ears and the sea bed rushing toward you but not getting any closer. Sick with vertigo you close your eyes and brace for impact and wake up with your teeth clenched so hard your whole face aches. It takes some time to realize you’re not still floating in the warm ocean and you’re not just sweating under too many blankets, that it’s Law heating the bed like a furnace but still trembling under all the covers. You shake him awake and he opens one golden eye.   
“You ok?” you ask. He just grunts. “Are you sure you’ll be fine sleeping here? You’ve got a good fever going.”   
“If it will calm you I could find a nurse with more experience”, he says, but burrows deeper into his cocoon and closes his eyes.   
“Yeah, I would appreciate that.”   
“Mmm.”   
“Come on, do I have to carry you?” You pull stubbornly on his blankets. “I don’t want you to get worse.” He reluctantly sits up, winces and starts shivering as soon as he leaves his blanket nest.   
“I really don’t want to move”, he says.   
“Do you actually want me to carry you?”   
“Ha, I want you to trust that I don’t need any medical attention. I’m sick but I’m not dying.”   
“Well, I don’t trust that for shit. Come on. Let me worry.” His tone softens at that.   
“Ok, yeah. Can you hand me my pants?”

He ends up walking on his own, his arm over your shoulder probably as much for warmth as for support. You get him to Bepo who knows where things are in the temporary base and who Law doesn’t mind being carried by, then you follow them to a small infirmary where Bepo leaves his captain on the narrow bed. You sit down on the floor and Bepo leaves to find a nurse.   
“You don’t have to stick around here you know”, Law says with his eyes on the roof.   
“I won’t fall back asleep anyway.”   
“I could give you something for that.”   
“You think I trust you to calculate dosages right now?” He scoffs at that, then you are left to silence. The faint yellow light from a table lamp makes the shadows thick and black. You don’t go back to his room even when a young sheep mink in a crooked nurses hat has checked his vitals, confirmed he will be ok and left him with a cold compress on his forehead. After a while you fall asleep with your back against the wall, not deeply enough to really dream.

When you wake up, stiff and cold, the room is washed out with grey dawn light. Law’s breath has a faint whistle to it, and you listen to the slow and even sound as you stretch your stiff back. What are you even doing here? All the zillion times he’s been injured he has made it out ok and this isn’t the worst you’ve seen him. You know he won’t be torn out from under your feet just because Luffy was. You know it. There's still no way you would have slept better anywhere else.

Law’s face is flushed and sweaty and unattractive. He looks even more tired when he's asleep. When you replace the wet cloth on his forehead he flinches awake and squints up at you.   
“You go back to bed yet?” he croaks.   
“Yeah.”   
“Liar.” You shrug at that.   
“Don’t even remember when the last time was I ate, but god do I wanna puke”, he says, frowning with his whole body.   
“Well, don’t do it in the bed.”   
“I shouldn’t make myself more dehydrated than I already am.”   
“You want some water then?”   
“ _ Want _ isn’t the term I’d use.” You flick his nose and he gives you a pathetically weak middle finger. You get him a glass of water anyway.   
“You know there are plenty of people who could be doing this”, he says. “People who I didn’t recently screw over.”   
“Yeah, exactly, so don’t tell me what to do!”

He sighs and frowns at you.   
“Sorry”, he says. He reaches his hand out and you take it, lace your fingers with his. “It’s not that I want you to be mad so I can feel better. At least it’s not just that. I’m worried about you.”   
“Yeah.” You sit down heavily on the edge of the bed, hold his hand between yours.   
“Sitting around here isn’t healthy.”   
“I know.”   
“You still have the option to leave and be with the other Strawhats, you know.”   
“Yeah.” You hunch over until your forehead touches his hand. “But I’m not done here. I want to leave with some peace of mind.” He just keeps quietly looking at you. “So you just keep working on that gash you’ve got going, ok?” You give him a lopsided smile and flick his nose again. He doesn’t even seem offended.

You let go of his hand to stretch your arms over your head.   
“If it makes you any happier I’m going to go have some breakfast.”   
“I don’t want you having breakfast for my sake you dumbass!”   
“I’m not, I’m having breakfast cause I’m hungry.”   
“Good.” He shuts his eyes.   
“Now you fight that gangrene, love.” You pat him on the (left) shoulder.   
“Just for you”, he mumbles.   
“Just for me.”

He stays asleep most of that day and doesn’t get worse or better as far as you can tell. You train-eat-sleep, get drunk with Shachi and Bepo and watch Bepo cry over something without knowing what. You sleep on your own in Law’s bed and dream restless bad things that disappear the moment you wake up. In the morning you eat breakfast, meditate outside in the muggy heat and then go to watch your husband (your significant dumbass) as he’s sleeping.

Bepo is already there, sitting on the floor next to the bed with his head resting on it. He looks like a big dog wanting to get onto a too-small couch. When you come into the room and sit down against the wall he flicks his ears and opens an eye to look at you.   
“You can lean on me if you want to”, he says.   
You consider the offer.   
“I think I’m good, thanks.”   
Bepo shrugs and shuts his eye again. You do as well, let your focus drift as you listen to the sound of steady breaths. Even as you do you don’t manage to zone out enough to be surprised when there is a knock on the door, and you don’t think Bepo is either. The door is opened before either of you has said anything by a teen in a white, unmarked boiler suit and a black cap with red and orange stripes at the front.

“Oh, Roronoa!” she says. It is Puffin, Law’s apprentice and unofficially adopted daughter. She tried calling you “uncle” for a while but luckily that didn’t stick. “What are you doing here?”   
“I… I’m not doing much really.”   
She laughs at you. It’s a damn good question.   
“Hi anyway”, she says, squirms a little. “And hello Bepo!”   
“Hello miss!” says Bepo and smiles his best teddy bear smile.   
“How is Mr Trafalgar doing?” she asks. “He seemed alright last time I heard from him but I see he got worse.”   
“He is still fighting the infection, but the debridement and new antibiotics are working.” Bepo nudges his captain’s arm with his shiny black nose. “Hey, Cap, Puffin is here!”

Law does not look happy to be awake, but he manages to put on a slightly less miserable face for his kid.   
“Hey Puffin.” His voice is sleepy and he barely opens his eyes, but reaches his left hand out for her. She takes it between hers.   
“Hello Mr Trafalgar. What got you this messed up?”   
“Think it’s mostly wounded pride”, he says with a tired smile. “I was a fool to get bested by a perfectly avoidable bacterial infection. Learn from my mistakes, kiddo, and don’t ignore your wounds.”   
“Yessir”, she says, smiling but all worried beneath it.   
“How are you yourself?” he asks. His voice is very gentle, but her face still gets all stern.   
“Fine.” She glances at you and at Bepo (who looks mysteriously guilty) and then back at Law. “Although my pride might be quite wounded as well.”   
“You heal that pride, dear Puffin. It has no need for hurt.”   
“Well, you heal that stupid bacterial infection!”    
“I’m working on it.” He sounds apologetic. “I should be better in a few days, it won’t be too long. Why don’t you two entertain each other until then?” He gives you a look asking to just go along with it. You shrug.   
“Fine”, says Puffin. “Would you spar with me, Mr Roronoa?”

You agree, and before you have even finished picking up your swords and leaving the room Law seems to be falling back to sleep with his hand resting on Bepo’s fuzzy head. Puffin whispers her goodbye not to wake him up.   
“That all seemed like something”, you say as the door closes behind you.   
“Something?”   
“That whole talk about wounded pride. What was up with that?”   
“Oh, that.” She hides under the bill of her colourful cap. “Well. I tricked and bribed my way into the actual Hearts of Heart uniform. He needed more trustworthy people and I didn’t want to be useless. He called me here when he caught wind of it, but I guess whatever he wanted will be delayed.”   
“Oh.”   
“He thinks I’m too young. But Bepo told me he was just 13 when he formed the crew! He can’t possibly think I couldn’t help.”   
“I don’t think that’s how he’d tell that story, you know.”   
“Yeah, the way he’d tell it to me is apparently not at all.”   
“Fair. He better change that, then.”   
She nods and pulls her cap even further down over her eyes.   
  
You arrive at a suitable clearing outside the temporary base and Puffin unsheathes her light, undecorated sabre. You never expected to like the challenge of teaching someone as much as the challenge of beating them but she has proved that wrong. She’s quick enough to learn but still much too stubborn to take any lesson at face value, and she is not after your title but still full of so much ambition. She’s just fifteen years old but quite skilled for her age, if very unlike both Law and you in her style. Explosive and a bit too confident in brute force.   
“You know, Luffy was older than you when he set out”, you tell her.   
“Really? What on earth held him back?”   
“He promised his brothers not to take that kind of risk until he was at least seventeen. Ace left three years before him and he hated waiting, but he didn’t break his promise.”   
“He is a strange man.”   
“Strangest and best”, you say. The grief doesn’t hurt quite so much when it’s mixed with pride and love, but it is still not the time for those heavy thoughts. You draw Wado and gesture for Puffin to come at you.

You don’t talk while you fight and neither does she, your communication about swordsmanship needs no words. For a short precious time the world is small and simple and makes sense.

Still, the thing with Puffin is that when she is around Law is her mentor before he is anything else. Even when all he is doing is to lie in a puddle of sweat and look pitiful. That is fine, you afford him the time to prioritize her and you can’t pretend you don’t think she deserves it. But it means he is busy being some sort of dad person on top of being sick, and you are absolutely not up for being any sort of uncle person so you end up passing the time drinking and sleeping. At least Law isn’t in his room so you can throw your pity party undisturbed, surrounded by his blankets, dirty laundry and illegible paperwork.

It is only three more days until he returns to his room. He is quiet and muted and disheveled, his eyes aren’t so hazy but he looks weary and old. It's a relief that you happen to be close enough to sober, even if he’s already intimately familiar with the uglier sides of your drinking habits. You hate it every time he has to be reminded. The way he looks at you now where you lie in his bed with your own chaos mixed in with his, still makes you think he will turn around and leave. You meet his eyes and hold your feelings like one holds the closed jaws of a crocodile.   
“Hey”, he says.   
“Hey.”   
He lays down next to you on the bed and sighs into your chest. His hand draws gentle circles on your back.   
“You still alive in here, Zoro?”   
“Yes?”   
“Mm. I was glad to see you weren’t hovering, but then Puffin told me you were holed up in here instead.” He moves his hand to card through your messy hair. You are not sorry for worrying him.   
“Did you talk to her?” you ask. He nods.   
“I tried so fucking hard to make sure she didn’t feel indebted to me, and I tried all wrong.”   
“It’s a hard thing not to feel”, you say. You don’t know if he agrees, he just holds you a little tighter and after a while his breath deepens and evens out. This time you are fine with him sleeping with his clothes on, he’s practically dressed in pyjamas anyway and his feet are bare. In the middle of the night you wake up because he is shivering, pressed up close to your chest. You pull some of the blanket pile haphazardly over him and drift back to sleep.

In the evening the next day he appears as you are working out, sitting on the stairs of the base's main entrance and watching you like a restless ghost. You are very good at ignoring people who stare at you when you exercise and you are not about to let him interrupt you. There’s no proper equipment but that is ok, you lift rocks and do kata in the humid air with sweat dripping from your nose. If Puffin comes by she does not ask to join you. More than an hour later when you are pleasantly sore, drenched in sweat and decide you are done Law hasn’t moved. He has a notebook on his lap and a pencil in his hand but he’s staring absently at nothing.

He gets up when he notices you’re done and follows you as you walk toward his room for a shower.   
“What’s up?” you ask once you get sick of waiting for him to find his words.   
“I’m going to have to get going soon”, he says. “Maybe tomorrow, probably the day after that.”   
You want to tell him he can’t, that he still needs to rest.   
“You can follow me if you want but it seems inadvisable,'' he continues.   
“It does, doesn’t it.”   
“Yeah. But I don’t suppose you feel much peace of mind yet?”   
“I don’t think so, no.”   
“Do… do you want to talk about it?”   
You pause outside of his door for a moment, take a deep breath. Then you nod.   
“Just let me shower first.”   
“Of course”, he says. “Take your time.”

You resist the temptation to stay in the shower until the water runs cold, but take the time to wash and comb out your hair. It is too warm for a shirt but you put your pants on and throw a towel over your shoulders to catch water dripping from your hair. You count three breaths and walk out of the bathroom. Law is sitting on the bed looking through a stack of papers. He puts them aside when you sit down on the other end of the bed.   
“I don’t know where to start”, he says. You look at him, he looks at his hands. Another deep breath.   
“Why did you just leave without a word?” you ask.   
He hesitates.   
“It is not a good reason.”   
“Of course it’s not”, you say. “I want to hear it anyway.”

He nods.   
“I knew people would be coming after me. And I knew that if someone killed me or defeated my crew now, nobody would ever remember me as anything other than… Luffy. What I was to him. I am too vain and selfish to stand the thought. So I knew I had to stay as sharp as I possibly could and there was no space in that plan for grief or for help from outside the crew, so I had to leave and not think about him or you or any of it until it was, safe or whatever. I wanted people to know I am my own person.” He has his left hand clenched around his right arm, digging his nails into the skin at the bottom of the heart tattoo. You let him.   
“I want you to be your own person, too”, you say. “If you told me to let you fuck yourself up in peace to keep up appearances I would have let you, you know.”   
“Would you really?” You shrug.   
“I wouldn’t have let you disappear completely. And I definitely wouldn’t have let you spy on me! You could have just called. Or have someone else call if you can’t stand to hear my fucking voice.”   
“Bugged connections”, he says, voice monotone and eyes stubbornly locked at nothing.   
“Oh fuck off!” He flinches. “You couldn’t think too hard about me ‘cause you couldn’t think of Luffy. You know, I buy that! But you could have just told me so before leaving!”   
“I didn’t even justify it to myself”, he whispers. “I just did it and thought as little as I could. I guess, I think somewhere I knew, that if I had to say it out loud I couldn’t have gone through with it.”   
“So you just left.”   
He nods, swallows thickly. His face is all twisted up.

“Why’d you leave your vivre card with me? You could have just taken my part of it, you know where I keep it.”   
“Wanted you to have it.”   
“You wanted me to be able to watch you die with no way to do anything about it.” Now he does turn to look at you.   
“No! No, no, shit, I wasn’t going to die!”   
“What do you think this looks like then?” You gesture at his shoulder.   
“It… I wasn’t going to die! That was the whole point, I’ve been hiding out on this stupid sweltering armpit island for weeks so it wouldn’t get worse!” He stops clawing at his arm to rub his eyes. “Fuck… I guess I liked that risk better than making you read about it in the papers. At least you’d know the truth.”

You sit in that silence. Law smooths himself out a little and you turn his words over in your hands.   
“Can I ask you something?” Law says after a while.   
“Yeah?”   
“Why aren’t you with the Strawhats? You left from Water Eight, if I understood correctly. Where were you going?”   
“My crewmates all had something to do”, you answer after a while. Now it’s you who’s looking at your hands. “They had somewhere to be, something to protect. I never had… somewhere, other than the Sunny and I can’t man her on my own. My title starts and ends with me. I felt like a ghost with nowhere to haunt.”   
“So you were just drifting?”   
“I told Franky I was going to look for you. Obviously I only had a chance because your spy is a dumbass, so yeah, I might as well have been drifting.” 

He puts his hand over his mouth.   
“I thought so little about you”, he says. “My assumptions were heartless and cruel and I didn’t even realize I was making them.”   
You say nothing. He is not wrong.   
“For as long as I live, I will never lack something to protect. You will always be worthy of that protection, Zoro, and I neglected you spectacularly. I wouldn’t blame you for thinking I will fuck up again, but never quite like this ok? Never.” He looks very serious and you can’t help laughing at his word choice.   
“You’re so dramatic.”   
“So what!” he says. “This is fucking important, I think some drama is in place!”   
“Yeah”, you agree with a wry smile. “You can have some drama if you want.” He doesn’t seem too pleased with that answer, huffs and then looks pointedly away from you. If ten odd years has taught you anything he is trying desperately to come up with a way to ask if the conversation is done without sounding horrible.

“I’m going to need to sleep on this”, you say. He nods, rubbing at the red marks he has left on his arm.   
“You want me to stay?” he asks.    
You elbow him lightly in the side.   
“This is your room, stupid.” He just looks at you. “Yeah, you can stay in your own damn room. You want to go for a walk or something before bed? I feel restless.”   
He nods, stands up slowly and slips his feet into a pair of sandals. The air around him in these light clothes is funny. You like it. He certainly doesn’t reach any potential for relaxed elegance right now, but at a different time you could see this style suiting him well. Still a difficult bastard of course, but a different one. 

The walk through the Zou night is quiet. Well, it is wordless with forest still full of life and sound. The air is humid and warm with just enough moonlight to see, and you let yourself zone out and relax knowing Law will find his way back. You are unsurprised he doesn’t relax himself. When you go to bed, after getting back and brushing your teeth elbow to elbow in the green bathroom, he is so tense he’s almost shaking. He keeps his arms wrapped around himself, like he had a nightmare but is scared to wake you up if he reaches out for you. You run a hand through his hair.   
“You ok?” you ask.   
“‘Course not”, he admits and presses his head into your hand. “But that’s not the point right now.”   
“Fair.” You keep petting his hair, and he keeps leaning reluctantly into your touch. His breath is short and shallow.   
“You scared I’m not gonna forgive you?” you ask.   
“Yeah”, he whispers. “I can’t stop thinking about this being the last time I’m ever sleeping next to you. You have to tell me to leave, Zoro, fuck. I’m gonna freak out and put you in a shitty place and I need to leave before I do that but I  _ can’t _ .”

He has a point. This probably isn’t how one is expected to deal with conflict, all wrapped around him and still not knowing how you feel. You don’t fault him for admitting he can’t keep up the brave face. But wrapped around him is such a comfortable way to be.   
“I think you know where you messed up. Right?”   
“Yeah. I disappeared. I fucked everything up about as much as usual but I was hiding, so you couldn't unfuck my mess.” That's one way to put it.   
“And you aren't going to beat yourself up and then just do it again, are you?”   
“No. No. Never.”   
“Yeah. Then there's no way you’re gonna lose me over this.” You move your hand to the soft hair at the nape of his neck. “I’m still upset but I am also still in love with you.” He looks at you with the same fear.   
“What if I fuck up some other way?”   
“Not like I don’t ever fuck up, right? Next time it won’t be this bad because you won’t cut me off.” He nods.   
“I promise”, he says. He doesn’t relax, he’s still trembling slightly when he shuffles closer and wraps his arm around you, but you feel the relief in every breath he takes. You rub his back and he keeps pressing closer to you, tangling his fingers in your hair and pressing his face into your neck. When you fall asleep he is still clinging to you like his life depends on it. You sleep soundly without dreams.

In the morning you lazily watch as he changes his bandages. He washes his hands to the elbow even though he only uses them to control his powers. The gauze drops in a spiral around him as he unfurls it, gingerly rolling his injured shoulder. A stitched-closed gash runs over the inner edge of his shoulder blade. You think of that time Luffy was stabbed by Crocodile through his whole damn ribcage. Even then he was tough as nails, but it made you nauseous to look at the wound and realize it went all the way out his back.   
“I’m staying one more night”, says Law, covering the wound on his back with an adhesive compress and leaving the better healed one on his chest exposed. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning. I have a lot of logistics to get to until then, but I hope to have some time to spend with you as well.”   
“Ok. Then I’ll leave tomorrow too.”   
“Where are you heading?”   
“Back to Water Eight. I left in a hurry and Franky was worried enough when I was still there, I need to let him know I’m alright.”   
“Good”, he says with a smile. “If you need any supplies for the trip, just ask.”

The next time you see him it is just after lunch, your boat is ready and you have gone through his room to make sure you aren’t forgetting anything. He is looking much more like himself, his beard is properly trimmed, his hair is cut short with no more endearing wisps of curly baby-hair at the nape of his neck. His steps have the right sound of boot heels and he is wearing jeans and an open hoodie. When he spots you he gives you a wide smile, so unabashed and honest it reminds you more of Luffy than of his usual reserved grin. You smile back, warm with love.   
“Hey, there you are!” he says. “You got everything you need?” You nod.   
“Puffin helped me.”   
“Good.” He hugs you, lingering and close like he’s melting and sticking to your skin. You put your hands on the small of his back under his shirt and lean into him as he nuzzles your hair.   
“I made you a batch of Chopper’s Herb Goop”, he says. “If you’re still hurting.”    
“Thank you.”   
“I left it on the bedside table. If you want me to help you with it I still have some things to get to, but I’ll be done in an hour.”   
“I’ll wait”, you say. No way you’re turning that offer down, just the fact that he reaches everywhere easier than you do on your own makes it worth waiting. You’re tempted to follow him around to remind him not to take too long, but you decide against it. Warrior’s honor and independence and rejecting human need for affection and all that. Really you just want to trust him.

He does actually take just under an hour. You appreciate the effort. He comes into his room (that soon won’t be his) as you are dozing off in the afternoon sun, sits down heavily on the bed and picks the jar of ointment up from the bedside table. It is labeled with today’s date and the words HERB GOOP in pencil on a piece of tape stuck to the lid. You undress unceremoniously down to your underwear and he watches you with that Doctor Mode kind of focus.   
“Anything in particular that’s been bothering you?” he asks, sharp eyes daring you to try to hide. “Or is it just general soreness?”   
“Pain in my chest, some trouble breathing.” You gesture to the place right at your sternum. “But you said that’s just in my head, didn’t you?”   
“I said I think it’s partly psychosomatic, that doesn’t mean it’s not real.”    
“Mm, whatever. Mostly everything just kind of hurts anyway.”   
“How’s the eye behaving?”   
“Not too bad. I think my hands are worse.” He nods, stands back up and rolls up his sleeves.    
“Alright. If this doesn’t help, which it may not since it’s pretty mild and entirely symptomatic anyway, go talk to Chopper about it. Ok? I know you can just push through it but that doesn’t mean you should.”   
“It always works well enough.”   
“Yeah, and you deserve better than well enough.” His voice is all serious, but he doesn’t keep pushing the subject. He just opens the jar and warms some of the sharp smelling ointment in his hands.   
“Want me to sit down?” you ask, and he shrugs so you do.

Usually Law in his doctor mode has manners in the style of Kureha (he did even before he made Chopper introduce them) and hands that are brusque and efficient. That has its own kind of comfortable familiarity, but today his hands are gentle with a bit of shaky weakness left in the right one. He starts at the nape of your neck, rubs the hot-cold-numb feeling into the layers of abrasion scars covering the skin on your shoulders and works the knots out of the muscles underneath. At the various scars from exit wounds and scrapes on your sides he does whatever magic it is that makes his touch not be ticklish, then he’s done with your back and nudges you to turn around.   
“Want to do your arms yourself?” he asks as he kneels down to reach your legs. You can have him hold your hands all you want later, probably. You nod, and start working the ointment into your aching knuckles and all the laceration scars covering your arms. It is easy enough that you can focus on his hands working from the deep, ugly scars around your ankles up to scrapes and cuts over your shins and knees, but you are glad to have a distraction when he works on a series of surgery scars running from the outside of your knee to the upper inside of your thigh.

The deepest aches of your body remain but all the others fade into a warm, numb buzz. As he starts working up over your chest you lie back and close your eyes, follow the air into your lungs and his fingers over your skin. By the time he reaches your face you are floating in half-asleep comfortable warmth, watching him work with a half-lidded eye. He looks so serious. With one hand he holds your chin still and with the other he rubs the painkiller first over your over-and-over broken nose and then almost all the way to your paralyzed eye. He considers his work, then with the utmost care lifts the scarred eyelid to check the eye underneath for irritation or infection. As he finishes and sits back you grab his hand and pull it back to kiss the inside of his wrist. 

“How are you feeling?” he says quietly as you keep nuzzling his hand.   
“Much better”, you say. You sit up (since he doesn’t seem to want to lie down) and he reaches up to stroke your hair.   
“Good. You look better, too.” Keeping your eye open is worth it for that fond smile on his face.   
“So do you, you know”, you tell him. “You look like yourself.”   
“Mm, all back in business.” He brings his hand down from your face. You keep holding it. “I did change one thing though”, he says with well-hidden uncertainty.   
“Hm?”   
He nods. Then you notice out of the corner of your eye that his hands are different: the letters on his fingers are gone. There’s just a faint, hazy outline left.   
“Oh”, you say. You knew he could do that, use his powers to remove the ink of tattoos just like he could remove poison. He hasn’t done it before as far as you know but he mentioned it once when you were talking about the permanence of body mods. “How come?” you ask. He shrugs.   
“Got sick of looking at them. My hands do look weird though.”   
“You going to replace them with anything?” you ask and turn his hand over to run your fingers over his inner wrist. Both hands have tattoos there, on the left a stylized version of the little scar under Luffy’s eye and three simplified swords underneath. You know the ones on his right are for Bepo, Shachi and Penguin but you don’t follow their symbolism.   
“I’m not sure what the replacement should be”, Law says. “How about  _ life _ ?”   
“At least it’s four goddamn letters!” you say with a laugh. He looks embarrassed and ready to defend his poor taste. “No, no, I like it!” He hmpfs at you and you lean against him to pat his back.   
“It’s not like I’ve decided yet”, he says. “I’m sure I can think of something better.”    
“Mm.” You hold him close and he wraps his arms around you in return.

“You know, you may have your moments, but I think life fits you better than death.”   
“You think so?”   
“Yeah. You’ve been more about life for a good while.” Maybe for as long as you’ve known him.   
“That’s gotta be a good thing, right?”    
“Definitely.”    
He laughs. It sounds a little thin, but he squeezes you closer.   
“Thank you”, he says.   
“Don’t mention it”, you say and rub his back. “Thanks for the massage.”    
“You don’t mention it!”    
You keep holding him. He sits awkwardly with his legs off the edge of the bed and his torso twisted to cling to you.   
“Thank you, Zoro”, he whispers.   
“Hm?”   
“For coming for me.”


End file.
